that's really what the crux of this fiscal cliff negotiation -- what these fiscal cliff negotiations are all about. they're about fairness. when the president and congressional democrats talk about the need for balanced approach, to deficit reduction and dealing with the fiscal cliff, we're talking about fairness. we're talking about making sure that if you work hard and play by the rules everyone has a chance to succeed. that the middle class needs certainly tight right now. speaker pelosi and my colleague congressman tim walls, filed a discharge petition today to take the bill that we have, that has already passed the senate, that grants certainty to the middle class, to take that bill up and make sure that we can extend the middle class tax breaks before the holidays where we can give -- that's what everyone agrees on. i don't know any republican or democrat that thinks we should let those tax rates -- tax cuts for the middle class expire. so we should pass that now. and then on the things that we're having more trouble agreeing on, we should sit down at the table. the one thing i